The Object of Beauty

Like a John Cheever short story or a sociological snapshot by Tom Wolfe, The Object of Beauty is about people who have been so defined by their lifestyles that without those styles they scarcely exist. Read full review

It's a spirited, sumptuously crafted tale about two spoiled Americans, Jake (John Malkovich) and Tina (Andie MacDowell), who have pushed their credit cards to the limit and now are going bankrupt in a London luxury hotel. Andie MacDowell almost equals her performance in sex, lies, and videotape. Funnier and looser than she was in Green Card, she's on her way to becoming our subtlest screen comedienne. [26 Apr 1991, p.3]

A mild but charmingly off-kilter romantic comedy that gently satirizes love in an era of buy-now-pay-later brinkmanship. Read full review

The film works as contemporary fable, cautionary tale and perversely driven love story all at once. There's a gratifyingly wide streak of humanism running through it. And there's that "chemistry." Malkovich and MacDowell, bubble, bubble. Yes, indeed. [26 Apr 1991, p.G11]

The Object of Beauty might have been practically perfect escapist entertainment if the screenplay had been as smooth as the cast. Mr. Lindsay-Hogg has written some attractive characters and a lot of bright lines, but he needs a script doctor. He has let the plot confuse things. Read full review

An elegant farce written and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. At first, frankly, The Object of Beauty is not as much fun as you might expect it to be, but ends up having more to offer both the audience and Tina and Jake than either we or they suspect. [12 April 1991, p.F1]

It's really no pain to sit through Object. Even at its most drawn out, the movie has its comic moments. Malkovich makes a perfect, plastic-souled being. Read full review

Watching this thinly written, intellectualized caper film, one realizes how far downhill we've come since Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise or even Jules Dassin's Topkapi. If Object of Beauty were to have worked as a comedy of manners, it would have needed a director with some champagne in his bloodstream and a cast with some insouciance in their bones. Read full review

The yuppie dream of an unencumbered life where style always exceeds substance is at the crux of The Object of Beauty. Partly likable and partly odious, your reaction may depend on whether, like the proverbial glass of water, you see their lives as half empty or half full. Read full review

Unwed John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell are living on what amounts to room-service charity in a posh London hotel, waiting for his cocoa crop investment to bankroll their spiralling bill. Neither lead plays a very bearable character, and the pathetic maid (destitute and hearing-impaired) is too obviously conceived as their counterpoint. It's good to see MacDowell loosening up (a little) after her alarmingly stilted dialogue delivery in deadly, dreadful Green Card. But that's all. Sleeping Beauty never awakens from its monotonal slumber. [12 Apr 1991, p.2D]

Object of Beauty is another zap-the-yuppies outing, more elegant than most, and sophisticated, too, but hollow and on the whole charmless as it leaves us uninvolved with the spectacle of cash-strapped John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell holed up in a posh London hotel, living on room service and dodging the manager. [19 Apr 1991, p.42]

It's surprising to see John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell together in such a meandering mess as The Object of Beauty. It's also surprising that their being in it doesn't help. [19 Apr 1991, p.E1]

The Object of Beauty is a throwback to the romantic comedies of Swinging London cinema, but lacks the punch of the best of that late 1960s genre. Mildly diverting but empty picture.

This looks lustrous (thanks to cinematographer David Watkin) but it's bankrupt in terms of ideas and execution and both leads seem uninspired. Read full review

Lindsay-Hogg wrote and directed this dull, static flounder, which exposes both MacDowell's limitations and Malkovich's withdrawal of labour. Read full review

Perhaps the shrewdest thing the filmmakers have done is call the film The Object of Beauty instead of A Thing of Beauty, which would make much more sense. By doing so they've removed what they must have known was a far-too-tempting opening for reviewers -- of saying A Thing of Beauty is not a joy forever. Even with the change, though, the sentiment fits. Read full review